The Cutting Up: A Kiki with Connie & Lina

Laverne Cox, Part 1: ’90s NYC Nightlife & Her Memoir

• Pride House Media • Season 1 • Episode 132

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 45:57

Laverne Cox is here, and she's giving us two full episodes.

This is the conversation we've been waiting for! Laverne sits down to talk about 1990s New York nightlife, trans visibility, and her new memoir, Transcendent (out June 9, available for presale now). 

Before the Emmy nominations and the global recognition, Laverne was on the downtown dance floors during one of the most electric eras in New York City club culture. The stories do not disappoint. We talk about what it actually felt like to navigate that world as a Black trans woman in the '90s—the joy, the complicated politics of race and access, the relationship between downtown club culture and the ballroom communities uptown, and the messy shift that happened when bottle service moved in and something essential moved out.

There's also some serious sparkle in here: Laverne on the dance floor at Beyoncé and Jay-Z's Oscar party. Lina DJing Laverne's 50th birthday celebration which was perfectly timed to the release of her Barbie doll. The whole conversation about chosen family and community-building in a world before social media.

Laverne’s memoir opens up about trauma, shame, dissociation, family secrets, and healing. 

Part 1 is Laverne at her most reflective, funny, vulnerable, and expansive. And part 2 picks up right where we left off.

Click here to order Laverne’s book Transcendent: A Memoir

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-cutting-up-a-kiki-with-connie-lina/id1849020008

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/200MOk48TaLRPLQvzx2UK0?si=6499dd094f704a10

iHeart: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-the-cutting-up-a-kiki-wit-303161901 


Write to us at Kiki@TheCuttingUp.com


And follow us on instagram:

@TheCuttingUp

@TheRealConnieGirl

@TheLinaBradford

@PrideHouseMedia


“The Cutting Up: A Kiki with Connie & Lina” is a Pride House Media production.

Producers: Josh Rosenzweig & Matthew Breen.

Graphic Design by Daryl Raymond.

Original Music by 808 BEACH (John “J-C” Carr & Bill Coleman), courtesy of Peace Bisquit. 

 Production Design by Darryl Dickens. 

Our very special thanks to Jason Kanner for all your support.


SPEAKER_02

You're gonna get it, honey. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01

It's time for the cutting up. A Kiki with Connie and Lena.

SPEAKER_02

This is your backstage pass to all the dishfish. And that's the truth, Ruth. Come on now. Get into it. Con con welcome black. Hi, Lena. How are you?

SPEAKER_01

I'm better now. How are you doing? Oh, and your goddess wears. Oh, I mean, did you just book this flight for me?

unknown

Yes, I did.

SPEAKER_01

You're giving me very tea or me. You please. You're giving me very um, which we'll call it, uh, Swiss sporting school. My daddy has coined.

SPEAKER_02

I don't have my homework. Ah!

SPEAKER_01

But do you have panties on?

SPEAKER_02

Oh.

SPEAKER_01

Ma kiss, I'm not wearing any panties!

SPEAKER_02

Don't have on any panties.

SPEAKER_01

Honey, today has been that day I can smell it already of nostalgia sh. Yes. You smell something in the air? I do. I do too. Is it your designer and pastures perfume sugar? Oh, I never wear a designer and pasture perfume. I only wear the original. Remember when I pulled out that uh whatchable? Oh, the tickle bottle. The tickle bottle. Oh my god. Oh, honey. And the Gina Tay. Which is a uh It's a sign of horror. That's right.

SPEAKER_02

And Love Babysoft when I pulled that one out. Love Baby Soft means that you are.

SPEAKER_01

And these were the originals, if you remember you all. So I've had them since Black in the Day. Thank you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well, speaking of originals.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Speaking of tipping point. Just the tip. Just the tip.

SPEAKER_01

He always says just the tip. And then what we have four kids later. So what? Who cares? That's ours.

SPEAKER_02

Yes. Um, we have an illustrious guest coming. Do tell. She is a goddess, an actress, an author, an activist, a beauty, a fashion icon. She is. Stop talking about me. Please go on. She is our sister. Let's say it together. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

That was beautiful. Thank you to hear all of those lovely things from women who I deeply, deeply admire. I'm just gagging that your stomach is this black seated. When I sit down, the roles just come girl over Casey Duke is turning you out. Casey Duke. Yes, she is. Thank you, Mama. Play Casey Duke.

SPEAKER_01

I know you did. You turned her over. Lord, have mercy. Thank you, mama. You're sitting there. Like, girl, talk. Bless your heart. I go out with her for two hours a day, three, four times a week. I just I and I ride my bike. I I thank you, sister. I I'll work out eventually. She's like, I spelled J with a J.

SPEAKER_00

I'm getting older. Like, honestly, if you're better. And better, but at this age, the the creaking, just to like move so I can move better.

SPEAKER_01

We were all dancers, okay? So I gotta tell you, my mobility has gotten better working out with her because, you know, being a dancer, being in heels for a long time and whatnot, my especially my knees sometimes, I felt like they were giving me issues. But the more I've worked out with her has built up my mobility and my strength in my knees.

SPEAKER_00

And honestly, I want to dance, I want to dance again with like the stamina that I used to. I hadn't danced in a really long time. And at the um at um Beyonce and Jay-Z's goal party at um at the their annual Oscar party. I was like, I need to get my life, and the DJ is always amazing. Right. So I was, girl, there was a big old fan. Uh oh. Not a fan. I stood in front of that fan. I let my hair down and I was getting my life, but I had to take my take breaks to catch my breath a lot. Right. But I I I managed floor work, girl.

SPEAKER_03

She's like, I managed floor work.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Hello? Absolutely. Girl, you gotta let them know. At one point, we're not supposed to say what happens at these parties, but at one point, Mr. Carter walks by and he's like, That's that Beyonce shit. When I was dancing, because I was feeling it. I was getting my life. Like we, you know, yes. You know how we do.

SPEAKER_02

Um that religious experience of sorting being sort of being one with the music and emoting in the music. Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

And letting your body, yeah, it is spiritual, it's church, and it and it honestly, and I have to, I was like, I was thinking about because I'm um I'm recording my audiobook now, and um, we just I just talked about moving to New York and makeup room. Oh makeup room baby at Webster Hall, which was photos of us from that day, honey. Which was your world. That it was your world. I wish people if you know, you know, but makeup room was Friday nights at Webster Hall in the balcony. And the kids, the the the girls, the runway children, it was everything. The children, and the and you carry. You care, but you you carried the energy. There was we were doing runway, you were I just you just never every you were constantly twirling. You were on a on the bar, you were twirling, you were on the floor, you were doing splits, you were doing it, it just and it was so inspiring. And I when I moved to it was 1993 when I moved here, and I was at Maker Boom every like every week.

SPEAKER_01

So much fun.

SPEAKER_00

It was so much fun, and it was it was everybody was kicking and cutting up and doing runway, and you were everything. Flamingo East. Um, what was that Monday party? Uh sugar babies. Sugar babies, flamingo east, crowbar, swirl on Tuesday. I was I was at your show, girl. I was this little, this young girl. I remember when you came on the scene. This young girl, I was I was 21 when I moved here, but I was so from but from in Alabama, Indiana, but I was 21 when I moved here and was so had been so sheltered. Right. Yeah. I came here very gender non-conforming because I just that's who I was. Yeah. But sheltered.

SPEAKER_01

You're seeing your tribe.

SPEAKER_00

AF.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And it was just this world and this beauty and this and the possibility. Right. And the possibility. And I met I met Tina Sparkles that first night at um. I always thought you two were sisters. We used to get confused a lot. Yeah, yeah. As we did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. People would call me Tina and they would call me Connie. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Um, but I met Tina and she asked to borrow my powder that night. The next day literally the next day, I went to Abracadabra and she was working there out of drag. And Tina was the catalyst for my for me. I was like, because I watched her and I was like, holy shit, what is this? Because Tina. Yeah, Tina was gorge. But the trans, like no shade, but no, no, no, it was light in day.

SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. I know the first time I saw her out of the yeah. You've seen a girl.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I was like Tina.

SPEAKER_01

That damn girl.

SPEAKER_00

So I was like, if the with the Melissa Moans you do that for her, I was like, Yeah, give me some moans, honey. And she was just so beautiful and always had this wonderful spirit, and it was always so sweet. Yeah. And so Tina was the main one. Sorry, what? Didn't she move to Idols? She did. Yeah. I write her about her in my book, but I changed her name because I don't want to, because she's stealth, you know, you know. Yeah. We want to keep the girls, you know, safe.

SPEAKER_01

In this world.

SPEAKER_00

But yeah, but she was like, there was, but there were so many. If you remember Paris, Natalie.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yes, doing cool. She worked in the art world.

SPEAKER_00

She worked at coffee shops.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, coffee shop was the everything.

SPEAKER_00

She worked at coffee shop. She was the host of the coffee shop before me. And and you that's right, you worked at coffee shop. I worked at coffee shop for 10 years. Yes. 10 years. 10 years. Girl.

SPEAKER_02

But coffee shop was years back in the day.

SPEAKER_00

Down.

SPEAKER_02

But it was game funnel employment.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Exactly. And there was safety. And there was room for us to sort of germinate and like you know, transition. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What I did I transitioned at coffee shop too. And why and the part of the reason I got I'm I was working at Stingy Lulu's, which I don't mention the story. Stingy Lulu's dog. I know, right. I was at Stingy Lululus first. Remember that? And I happened to go to coffee shop one night after the club, and one of the people working there was like, they love you here. You should apply. And I was like, okay.

SPEAKER_01

It was all the models. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

The models, but after midnight it was. But after midnight was the children, yeah. So it was the kids. It was the children, it was the club kids. And so I started working there. I went in and um and for an interview, and Carolyn, all the all the owners of Coffee Shop were all former models. Yep, yeah. Eric, Carolyn, and Charles. And Carolyn interviewed me, and I went in and uh, you know, I was in my gender non-conformity. I think I had some big old bell bottoms and I had a shaved head, and I used to draw my eyebrows. Oh, hello.

SPEAKER_02

Beauty.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Used to draw on my brows and I was lashes every day. Every day. Yeah. Every day in ballet class. Yep. At Marymount. I went to Marymount in ballet class with the lashes. People thought I had really long lashes. They didn't spook. Um, and I would draw the brows on, and she I walk, I came in and she said, We val you we value this look here. Keep this up. Work. That's what she said. But they did not want me working during the day. They only wanted me working at late night. I would pick up shifts when um cafeteria and other late night places opened. Business got slower for um coffee shop late night. And so I was like, pick up some day shifts. And I did, and they saw me during the day, and they were like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're supposed to be at the nighttime. And it was wow, there was not always the best treatment, but I knew there weren't a lot of jobs.

SPEAKER_01

But also, exactly, but it was good that there was something there was something and not having to resort to other things that a lot of people had to do.

SPEAKER_00

And that's why I stayed there for 10 years. I stayed there for 10 years. But even as I worked at coffee shop, I I went to I worked at Pat's, um, I worked at 8th on 8th Street doing makeup, like on the weekends for a minute. I worked at Hotel Venus um doing wigs for a minute. Um You did all the spots. And then I auditioned, I was auditioning. The great thing about coffee shop and doing that graveyard shift from 11:30 to 5:30.

SPEAKER_01

Damn, Gina.

SPEAKER_00

Because I was young, I was in my 20s, my 20s into 30s. I think I started there when I was 22. I could go and audition, I would go on audition during the day. I would do a play, and then I'd still be able to go to work and not miss work. And because every, you know, by 11:30, you can go and do your job. And that's somehow I had the energy to do all that. Could you imagine now? Yeah, I know, right? Like working all working all night. No, you're just getting out of here.

SPEAKER_02

That was the you would find the passion. Yeah, yeah. You would find the energy. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

And so it was it was great. And there were lots of opportunities I got from Coffee Shop, too. I so many things that I don't write about in the book. But I remember somehow these they were these two club promoters, they were African uh twins.

SPEAKER_01

I know exactly who you're talking about. Yes, they used to do something at um Nell's uh Nell's, and then they asked me to like teach the models how to walk.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They did a fashion show with um at um tunnel. They did a fashion show with tunnel, and they had me teaching the runway models how to walk. I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. Like I But that wasn't York though. It was about networking. Yeah. Every time you were out, you met someone fun, and they also, it was just like, oh, you know what? You would be great for this.

SPEAKER_00

That was the nine. That really was the 90s. That really was the 90s. It was the 90s.

SPEAKER_02

It was it was it was sort of that East Village creative community. And we could all like call on each other. That's right, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

And I was I really felt like an East Village girl, but it felt like there was a differential between the East Village girls and the world. And the Chelsea and West Village and all that? Oh, absolutely. You were everywhere. I was like, people need to understand this one, uptown, downtown, Chelsea.

SPEAKER_01

I was actually the first to do all that because I remember it was like it was so blasphemous to be in the East Village, and then it didn't, the cross promotion ever worked. And then because I was working every single night, I was doing the works, I was doing the break, and I was doing crowbar, and I was like literally working. I mean, all of it. It was so much fun. And then I remember when I left the East Village and I moved to Chelsea, and they wrote about it, and I remember this guy that lived across from the 20th precinct on 20th Street. Oh and uh Detective Rice, hey! They were so good to me. I'm sure they're good to all the girls. I would be out in my Westwoods with a mini skirt and this tie, getting in there, get me cars. But I remember they wrote about it and and they put my address in HX. And this guy followed me home one night. Yeah, it was so creepy, Sheena. Anyway, I had to give him some. I taught him a lesson.

SPEAKER_00

Uh-uh-uh uh I think we've all taught a lot of men a lot of lessons, Ruth.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, thank you. Like lessons that were needed. That's the truth, Ruth. Amen. Can I tell you something so surreal? I'm sitting here looking at these two beautiful goddesses, but I'm also looking at that doll that is exactly you! I mean! It's so wild. It's so wild.

SPEAKER_02

So, um Wait a minute, you have inbox and oh, I've got a couple of them, honey, because you know me.

SPEAKER_01

Because I've wanted to play with one of the biggest. She's a Barbie, she's a Barbie girl.

SPEAKER_00

So I had the pleasure of having Alina um DJ, my 50th birthday party, and we timed the Barbie to my 50th birthday.

SPEAKER_01

And I had no idea about the doll. Mind you, and and LeVern, I don't want to cut you off, but I have to tell you this, I don't think I did. I bought three of those dolls that day without even knowing. Like it was either that day or the day before. Whenever it came out, you you timed it perfectly, but I had already ordered. And then when I got there, they're like, here. I'm like, give me as many as I can carry.

SPEAKER_00

It was that was so beautiful to have you DJ that night. That was such a beautiful night. It was. It's turning 50. I had a Barbie. What a wild life. And I think about I think a lot about when I was thinking about coming here today and thinking about the career I've been able to have and how so many people told me that it wasn't possible, right? That like I don't uh being a black trans woman and a mainstream actor that that does no one does that. But then I think about the things that you did, and you both of you have done in your career that and it's it's it's wild because I was thinking about this the modeling thing. There were so many trans girls modeling.

SPEAKER_02

You were doing movies and and and traveling the world performing, and I don't it's just carving, carving out a lane, and making sure that the lane was wide enough so you could join, you could join, and to bring others with us. Yeah. Because uh it's it's it's a mixture of youth and I think a mixture of being like forged in fire, of going through what we had to do, um what we had to put up with and what we had to go through growing up that made us strong enough to go out and just just go.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And also wanted to help our other sisters of color because we knew it was harder for us. Yes. So we wanted to open the door and leave it there and make it easier for the next sister to come up because there wasn't that type of camaraderie with um, first of all, a lot within the trans community back in the day. It was very this. You know, you had your good duty, scarcity.

SPEAKER_00

There was scarcity, yeah. There was competition and fear and and trauma.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and and and and and and between the black and the uh Caucasian girls, they weren't helping like that. And a lot of girls were, you know, they were doing the sex work or whatever. So there were very few visual.

SPEAKER_00

This is something I wonder too, because thinking about, I didn't think about it at the time, but I was a downtown, I was a downtown girl. Yes. Um, but I didn't think about the race part of it and how I didn't either, but I think I was like, I think there was a lot of racism going on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That because I felt like if you weren't performing a specific kind, when I look back, a specific kind of coonery as a black girl downtown, they didn't see you. You know what? Expect you but you were the exception. I was the exception, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

No, you're absolutely right. It's funny, I I do remember, like, especially at the works. You remember it was very white. At the works uptown, up in Amsterdam. You know what I mean? So I remember when they asked me, because you know, we usually varla Jean Merman, Fierce Bitch, you know what I mean? It was a very particular type of performance art that was happening up there. And you know, I was a downtown girl, you know, and for them to ask me to come up there, I was like, wait a minute, this is unheard of. But it worked, but it didn't work for a lot of other girls of color to try to go up there or to other places that you're talking about. And it's funny because you wouldn't think about that because we were always in our own mesh with our people who were rah-rahing us up, you know what I mean? So you did get a little taste of that every once in a while when you went to places like that. And I would always see it because I'm like, these are my people, this is my life.

SPEAKER_00

Well, when I moved here, I was so weird. I was in college, I was at Marymount and I was studying dance, but I when I arrived, I got really into performance art and I started singing. I used to do this like surf reality, like performance art open mic. So I was into all this experimental stuff. I loved Blacklips before Black Blacklips Pyramid, like that was my all this PS122. Yeah, and just so I just loved Dr. Julia, yeah. Oh my gosh. But then all the wonderful shows at um at Jackie60 as well that were just so Floyd so avant-garde and Paige, oh my god, Paige.

SPEAKER_01

I know, I know. Gotcha, was a fucking so many, so many. We had some special ones, honey. Yeah. We really did.

SPEAKER_00

We kept it. So it was just it was that it's interesting to think about that and finding sort of finding, but I was I was in the scene, but I was kind of like, yeah, not in and out, yeah. Well, part of it was I was in college, but I was also just not, I was not, it's fabulous. I was not the girl. I was, but I but I'm so blessed that I got to have been in New York City in the 1990s at the best. Flamingo East Sugar Babies. I I mean, I got to experience like nightlife really at probably the height. It's peak. And it's end. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

At the bottle service happened in 2000. At the sort of peak before it started to fall into that sort of um bottle service. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Even we had it, if you remember after with when with Michael Alec, you know, did his thing, there was a and then when Giuliani came in, there was another shift, yeah, but it was still vibrant. Yeah, but there was a shift. There was a shift but bottle service, and I felt that I felt that hardcore. I remember because what because I worked at coffee shop and um all the promoters came there. Yeah, yeah. I got in everywhere I went, but also I was one of the kids. Yeah. So in the 90s, in the early 2000s, they wanted us at their party. We were like assets. Yep, that's right. The party. We were assets. Yeah. And I remember it was um, it was was it was butter. It was the opening of butter.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, yes. The opening of butter.

SPEAKER_00

And I know, and Richie used to come to coffee shop all the time. You know, Richie, the promoter. So I I arrive, you know, and I'm standing outside, and it's passed outside. And I I don't wait. You know, I didn't wait to get in. I was, you know, I was respectful.

SPEAKER_02

That that was that that was what other people did.

SPEAKER_00

I was respectful though. I learned I learned to be respectful, and I understood if like the door person was working with what I was like, hey girl, what's going on? It's all good. You know, be I was cool. That's right. It's all good. I'm I'm good. But then he's like, Yeah, I'm I've got you. You obviously you're getting in. I'm like, all right, cool. You know, and so I just hanging out, and it's like 15 minutes, 20 minutes. Oh no, but Justin Tremberlett comes in up, they let him ride in. Usher comes up, a few backstreet boys, like, and it was this is like oh forest.

SPEAKER_01

Oh forest. You're like, something's changed, Sonny.

SPEAKER_00

And it was it was that was the bottle service, that was the celebrity thing. And I was I've known Richie for years, and Richie always let me in. How am I sitting here? Always let me in. And after like 25 minutes, I was like, What the hell?

SPEAKER_02

I was like, I can go somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00

I I I did. I left.

SPEAKER_01

I was just like, This is like how is this my New York captaining like this? That was the gag.

SPEAKER_00

So so It was just that was like I was and that was around 04 and bottle service and that coincided with the end of sex in the city and it's like a lot of uh shifts, a lot of shifts, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just a lot of shifts. And and I think too, what I also think I theorized this too. I think it the um reverence for the for the dolls, for the kids actually started with Warhol.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

When Warhol in his factory, he would bring in Candy Darling and and all the all the drag queens. Yeah, and it was sort of man, he just this was cool. Exactly. And so there was a space created, I I would argue with Andy Warhol. And so through the 60s, 70s, 80s, he died in '87 or something. 88. Yeah. And then Michael Aleck and the club kids came along, and so there was still that New York thing of like you have to have all that.

SPEAKER_01

So you have to have the kids baton to pass on.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. So I think that like, and what that's what allowed me to be able to work at coffee shop. And for some some lucky, very lucky people, everybody didn't have that opportunity to be able to go and get a job. And I think like um, even me being this is when I think about as I grew up poor and you know, all that stuff, but the education privilege and studying art and just being creative, that privilege allowed me to be able to go like to a coffee shop and work, you know, when a lot of other black girls and do other things, and do other things, and study my craft on that. Study my craft.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, they were relegated to street to the street and the street experience, and if if if they did have that artistic sort of feel, it was put into ballroom, and ballroom was uptown. Right. Yes, and I it was not my never my thing. Until Pat.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. But then but then it went in. Yes, it wasn't it wasn't a consistent thing with Pat, but that ball uh the Pat the documentary from it was it '88, the um ball that Pat did where you did the um um um blonde Venus um tribute.

SPEAKER_02

Um yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, yes, yes, yes. The blonde Venus the the the uh Grace Jones.

SPEAKER_00

Was it Grace Jones? Because I remember you was it Grace Venus?

SPEAKER_02

I I came out in the monkey and yes, yes, yes, yes, I would think of blonde Venus. It was blonde Venus, but um Grace Jones and her partner Jean Paul Jean Paul Good Um took that blonde Venus for Grace Jones one man show. Ah so it was that and and um sort of Willie Ninja metal Malcolm McLaren, yeah. Um that was the first place that um Stephen Myselle saw me. Yeah, goodness gracious, and that's how I got the Azadinal lie. That's how that that's how the first time I shot with him. Yep. So you know that was a networking. That was it. It was that point of when uptown met downtown and sort of how that germinated, but then it sort of split up. That was a moment, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It was a moment, it wasn't a movement. Yes. Um, and that is so it's an interesting because when I and when I I just remember being when I saw Paris is burning for the first time, I it was 91 and I was living in Houston. I had graduated from high school.

SPEAKER_01

That's before you came here, right?

SPEAKER_00

Before I moved to New York and I um was studying ballet at Houston Ballet Academy, and I remember going to I saw seen them on the Joan River show and I went to the movie theater and saw Paris is Burning and could not relate at all.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I could not relate at all. I was from Alabama, I was a church girl, I was studying classical ballet. Now, after living in New York and knowing the girls and knowing the experience, not a ballroom girl, but like knowing the experience now I can read it.

SPEAKER_01

It's interesting for you to say that because look at the norm on these kids who are living in East Bumblefuck because they've been schooled from a Ryan Murphy and and how commercial it is now for people who can now um understand it and it really they relate to it-ish. You know, yeah. Because they will never really understand it. Yes, you know what I'm saying? But because I was a New Yorker, I uh and around it or whatever, I saw it, but I never understood it because it wasn't my life. We were we were the runway couture girls, whatever. But you know, when wherever we were like this, whatever we were always very cool and cordial, whatever, but there wasn't a connection for me when it came time to ballroom. I have more of appreciation for it now that our brother has left, and because I knew Willie and all these special people who really let me see the artistry. I don't see that anymore with these kids. You know what I mean? I listen, live your best life, love your artistry, but the precision and what Willie gave and all that stuff. Real like you can. Smoking has changed a lot in school. Yeah. It's not about flapping, it's not about duck walking, you know what I mean? The precision, like he was Willie Ninja for a reason. So I pay homage to that.

SPEAKER_00

There is an artistry. There, I mean, even uh uh uh Danielle Danielle Polanco. I feel like she's a ninja. She is new school, but has that pay it homage. Yeah, that finesse finesse, yeah, and there was such a it was a there was a training, and a lot of them are very trained now, but there was things just changed. Things just change.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah. That right, right. That absence, the absence of street culture. Because when Paris Paris's burning came out, um, I was around, but I was sort of segregated because I wasn't downtown.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly, right.

SPEAKER_02

And you worked at and and the ball and the ball kids didn't like us, yeah. I I was too new wave punk.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I I was I was doing gigs of squeeze box and singing Pantera and Metallica songs, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I was they didn't want it because we we we we weren't street enough for them, yeah. You know what I mean? And also too because of like the places and the things that we would be.

SPEAKER_00

But it's a different experience too. Yeah, yeah. Ballroom, ballroom was for a lot of the kids who got kicked out of their homes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

That's why there were homes for them, you know.

SPEAKER_00

And and so they and so then maybe the education was different, absolutely, you know.

SPEAKER_01

Um but the respect was there, you know. It was never shady, it was never fighting or whatever, but they were just two different worlds, yeah. And they were able to coincide because you had so many different people who would be up in the club from all different walks of life. I used to love that.

SPEAKER_00

That's what when a palladium. It didn't matter. A palladium when the up to the uh the ballroom girls were there voguing, carrying. So there were spot there were spaces where the girls would come in.

SPEAKER_01

Like you said, it would be happening because remember, there were like these were like monster clubs, so there'd be five rooms with five different kinds of music and five different DJs. That would never happen now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But they'd be glad we got the performance thing.

SPEAKER_00

I know. So whenever I run out of charge. Yeah, yeah. Whenever I would go, whenever I go out now, I'm just kind of like, um, I'm not missing anything. I'm not, I'm very just kind of because I I I was at Palladium at 4 a.m. when Kevin Abiance. You know, like no, not even 4 a.m. 8 a.m.

SPEAKER_01

when Kevin, yeah, because she was going late, honey. Junior Password. And Junior Vale didn't seal.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and at Sound Factory 2. Like 8 a.m. when the show would happen. Or even the new Sound Factory with I'm I'm Jonathan Peters. So it was just a different, yeah, like this these were these were events um that were just that one dress for that one that that was.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Oh, bumps.

SPEAKER_00

Oh everything. Dress codes will always be enforced. Legends know no dress code.

SPEAKER_01

That right there. But wait, speaking of Jackie Six, Jackie Six. Jackie Six, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, yeah. Um, Laverne, um, you had we're talking uh briefly, but let's get in. Your book comes out when? Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. My memoir, finally, it's called Transcend It. It drops June 9th, but is available for pre-order. I know. Right now. And so people can pre-order the audio version and the, you know, um other version. I'm recording the audio version right now, and it's um, my god, there's so much that we left out. I just think about all the things that didn't make the book.

SPEAKER_03

I know.

SPEAKER_00

Um it's parts. It's there's like 90,000 words, 280-something pages. We cut a lot out.

SPEAKER_01

But um I remember when we spoke about this. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And for a long time, people have wanted me to write a book for a long time, but I wasn't ready. No. When I wrote a book, I want it to like, I want it to be raw. I want it to like not feel controlled.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00

I wanted to tell the truth and have it be real and um not feel like I had to hedge anything, you know? And you know, I'm discreet about some stuff. There's a boys, boys, boys chapter that I literally read it yesterday. And I was so I was blushing and embarrassed reading some of it. I was like, why did I write this? Like, people are gonna read this.

SPEAKER_01

But that's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

Once upon a time, I was, you know, I was a, you know, I was a girl about town. And I enjoyed, you know, men enjoyed me and I enjoyed them. Um so yeah, but a lot of it is about we've been trying to figure out like what is this, and other people read it and I'm like, what are you what's your takeaway? And one of the publicists from Simon and Shushi was like, it's perseverance, it's like hard work, it's like you can do anything, and and um how you and your belief in yourself. And I just I was like, did I believe in myself? I you know, and I it's weird though, because like I and now I feel comfortable saying this, but I always felt like I was supposed to be famous since I was like three years old. Since I was three years old, five years old, I was like, I'm supposed to be famous, I'm gonna be a star. It's a weird and it's weird, but I but it was also tied to this black history book that my mother gave me um when I was six years old, with like little mini bio biographies of like Leonine Price and and W. B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King. And I remember like literally going to sleep with this book and imagining that because I knew I was an artist, what if how how wonderful will it be through my art to make things better for the people who follow me? This is at six years old, I was thinking that. And so that was always there through the bullying, through the all the abuse, which was awful. Like my childhood was and reading reading the audiobook, it's it's devastating. Like, I I cried the first day I had too many cries, and I had a big old ugly cry that ended the day. The second day, three cries, two ugly cries. The third day, we started a chapter, and I could not read the chapter. We skipped the chapter. And we were like, let's come back to it. And I called my therapist afterward, and I called my acting coach, and she gave me um um some tips about how to read it. And what she said is like, this isn't like when you're acting where you go into the wound and you live in it. This is about who do you want to tell the story to who needs to hear it? And I was like, okay, that because that's why I wrote the book. So I was like, okay. And it's still hard. Um, there's a lot of um, I mean, there's things I have I've never talked about publicly in this book, like preview. Like it's really one of the things is my um, I met my sperm donorslash biological father once. Once. And um, and my mother told me, so I knew because my mother would always say, You're gonna end up in jail like your like deputy, my um father. He was a drug dealer, I think a drug addict, and he spent time in jail. And my mother told me and my brother to tell people that he died before we were born. So this is a lie that I was told to tell other children, and I told that lie my whole life. Never talked about him. That was the lie. And so, yeah, I my ex-father firm don't was a drug dealer and a drug addict and spent time in prison, and we were told to lie about it.

SPEAKER_01

And holding on to that, you don't realize what it's doing for you and doing to you, and you there's no way to really compartmentalize and understand to find tools to understand that.

SPEAKER_00

The truth will set you free. It's like the so much of the shame, and there was so much childhood was shame, it was trauma, it was lies, and we're only as sick as our secrets. The letting like but being taught to lie by my mother too, and like there's so holding on to all that enforcement, yeah. And a lot of it was not about not embarrassing my mother too.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because that's the school they came from. It's like yeah, hide it, put it away, let's pretend it's cute.

SPEAKER_00

And there's a point when you just either you have to deal with it, right, or it will deal with you. Thank you. It will destroy you. And it re I couldn't, what I also what I realized too, writing the book, and I hadn't even fully realized this, is that when puberty happened, when I um when I knew puberty was approaching, and this is a wild thing in like 1980 or whatever, you know, I was um what I was eight years old in 1980, so this would have been like 11 years old, so I would have been like, I was born in 1972, this would have been like 1982, 83, when I felt like puberty was approaching. I would go to bed at night praying, please God, don't turn me into a man. That was my prayer, and I didn't like I knew I was a girl, and I knew I was a girl, and everyone was telling me I was a boy, and so I just assumed there would no there was no difference. And there was conversion therapy in third grade that I that I write about. Um my god. Oh yeah, oh yeah. Girl. And it was and go and trying not not just writing about it, but trying to like go back to what I was really feeling that I pushed down. Yes. Because you can't, there's uh the a child doesn't have the capacity to deal with any of the any of that. So all of those things that I pushed down, but I realized that when puberty happened, I just like left my body. It was I I I described in the book like like those like uncharmed when like you know, someone would die and the spirit would like hang out over you and your the body was there, but the spirit was up here. So I just left. I just left because I couldn't take it. And even as I was dancing, and even as I was, I couldn't, I didn't allow myself to have feelings or express myself. And when I was studying dance, it was all technical. And it really wasn't until um 1998, I was 26, and I started hormones and started transitioning that I felt myself slow, and I didn't realize it, felt myself slowly coming back into my body, allowing myself to slowly come back into it. And so there were all these years of me like disassociating, just and it's the book is called Transcendent because I've always wanted to transcend, but so much of my life was disassociating because of abuse, because I couldn't just be in my body, and the pain of that, and then not and then just being into and not being able to tell the truth or have the tools to tell the truth about it. But the beautiful thing is once I started medical transition and then therapy was required, which I didn't think I needed, I thought I was because I read Bell Hooks and I was smart. I didn't think I needed therapy. Oh, I needed therapy.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, life changer.

SPEAKER_00

I needed therapy desperately. And the reason I committed to therapy is because I was studying acting and I knew I wanted to, I knew I was supposed to be famous and I wanted to be a great actress, but we would do sense memory, and you have to use your life. And when memories would come up, I was literally vomiting.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, vomiting and acting class.

SPEAKER_00

Because it's physical overwhelming because there's a separate part to it, yeah, of not being connected to the body, and with the things would come up, and I was just puking, puking and acting. She had a big old trash can. I wasn't the only one puking in class. And my one um um Roberta Wallach, Eli Wallach's daughter, said therapy. After my she saw me in class one day and she was like, girl, therapy. And so that's that was already in therapy, but that's when I committed. Yeah, that's what made me commit because I was like, I want to be an actress and I have to be able to use my life. And God, it's just like just admitting that all this stuff happened. I never admitted that I was bullied. I know or I make light of it. Oh, I was a fast runner as a kid, you know. I would always make light of it.

SPEAKER_01

And like that's what kept us afloat.

SPEAKER_00

But that's I had, yeah, there was no way I could actually as a child feel all that. Absolutely I had to push it down, and but now as an adult, I can reckon with what actually happened. That's right. There was nothing wrong with me. The book is actually um um in three sections. Um, what's wrong with me is the first section, what happened to me, and the last section is what's right with me. Oh, and it's kind of been the progress, the progression for me of like healing from trauma and shame. Because every growing up, I was I thought if something was wrong with me. My mother's like, What's wrong with you? The teachers were like, What's wrong with you? Your son is gonna end up a new one who's wearing a dress if we don't get him into therapy right away. I felt like something was wrong with me. And then what happened to me? It's like the different stages of your of life, period. But it's actually what happened to me that like made all these, created all this stuff. But then, even through all of all of the bullying, the abuse, the you'll read about it, there was a resilience. There was something that and it was it was art, yeah, it was art, there was a determination to be successful too. I that's what saved me in middle school because my mother was a teacher, and I I decided I was smart and I spoke well. I was always summarizing the Sunday school lesson and stuff every every week uh in church. I would summarize the Sunday school lesson. So I was I didn't realize that I was being trained to get up and do public speaking every Sunday. Yeah, I didn't realize that. And so when I got to middle school, I'm gonna make all A's and I was doing my talent shows, you know, I choreographed a dance routine to manhunt from Flash Dance Girl. I was doing I was eight years old, but you know, I was like 11 years old doing a jazz dance routine to manhunt from Flash Dance Girl.

SPEAKER_02

I'm using dancing God-given tool.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, but like I'm like, I don't know if I understood fully what the manhunt was giving, but I was obsessed with flash dance. But so the talent shows and the public speaking, public I was public speaking champion in eighth grade, vice president of the student council, national junior honor society. So those things kind of helped me to kind of, I'm gonna be successful, I'm gonna be smart. And so I was this very determined person, and then the trans thing comes in, and like me needing to express myself, and it's like I've been groomed to be successful, and then the world tells you if when you're gender non-conforming and trans, because my by high school I was at the I was at Alabama School of Fine Arts, so I started going to Salvation Armani. Um and and you know, I didn't I wearing like I was afraid to wear dresses because I didn't want to end up in New Orleans wearing a dress like Miss Ridge Way, my third group teacher said. So I had the velvet culottes and big baggy bell bottom pants, and I started wearing makeup in high school. So I was I didn't have the term gender non-conforming, but I was gender non-conforming in high school. Absolutely, and in college. And still a straight A student, still an overachiever, but people were were like, you can't be successful if you present this way. And I that didn't make sense to me. It didn't make sense to me. And like I think what the one of the most beautiful things about being trans is that, at least for me, and I think for a lot of us, and you can tell me if you agree with this, is that I always knew I was a girl, and people were telling me I was a boy. So immediately I was like, something's off. They're lying to me. Because this I know, I know I'm a girl.

SPEAKER_02

You know who you are. I know I'm a girl.

SPEAKER_00

So it created this critical awareness and this like questioning of everything that I remember when I read Lisa Grass when I read Walt Whitman for the first time in um my freshman year in high school. And Walt Whitman talked about question everything. Question everything. And that has also saved me and served me to have to question things and not just take things at face value. Because If I had done that, I wouldn't be here. That's right. I would have killed myself. Yes. I would have killed myself. So yeah, that's that's the book. We talk about boys. We talk about my career, studying art and um and the lessons, the stories and the lessons uh of my life.

SPEAKER_01

Laverne, I'd like to thank you so much for taking the time to come out. We want to leave on a high note, if you know what I mean. You guys sending you blessings, love, enlighten, always some brown sugar kisses.

SPEAKER_02

What you got, girl? I got some uh lovin' for my sugar dumplings and deuces, bitches. And since we got our sisters here, what you got for us, girl?

SPEAKER_01

What you gonna sign us off with?

SPEAKER_00

Stay in the motherfucking love. Amen. Stay in the love. And the passion will get you through. Thank you. People always ask me, how are you so confident? I'm gonna be confident. I'm not confident, I'm passionate. I'm passionate.

SPEAKER_01

There's a difference. Exactly. And I'm not um uh uh a pompous or conceited sweetheart. I'm secure. Yes, how are you doing? We'll see you next Thursday, y'all. Laverne, we love you. Secure the sister. Our show is produced by Josh Rosenspock and Matthew Breen. Our gorgeous graphics are by Daryl Raymond. Our theme music is You Need It, produced and written and performed by 808 Beach, John J.C. Carr, and Bill Coleman. Courtesy of Peace Biscuit. Our perfect production designer is Daryl Dickens. This season's hair has been done by the heavenly hair goddess herself, Mariah. Our very special thanks to Jason Canner for all your wonderful support. The cutting up is a Pride House Media production.